History Film / WhiskyGalore

!!Tropes:

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The story is inspired by the RealLife story of the SS ''Politician'', a merchant ship that ran aground offshore of the Hebrides in February 1941, carrying 22,000 cases of malt whisky and over £500,000 in ten-shilling banknotes (something the film omits). Not all of the cargo was recovered from the wreck.

* AgeGapRomance: Sergeant Odd is rather embarrassed when Peggy calls him old and then specifically notes that he's 17 years older than she is. She marries him anyway.

* CurseCutShort: Fortified by LiquidCourage, George says to his mother, "I've told you my terms, and if you don't like them, you can go to -- you can go to Glasgow!" (Earlier his mom had threatened to go to Glasgow to live with her sister.)

* EverythingsLouderWithBagpipes: When Ma Campbell won't stop carping about his impending marriage to Peggy, George finally shuts her up by playing bagpipes right in her face.

* HomeGuard: The trope namer is shown here as a vaguely silly citizen militia (rather like it would later be depicted in ''Series/DadsArmy'', comparisons with which are very obvious in TheRemake). George, the second-in-command, can't go out to the ship because he's grounded (although he escapes by climbing out of his bedroom window), and another militiaman's mother uses his helmet to feed chickens. Captain Waggett is the sort of fellow who will put up roadblocks on the island just to look busy, despite the fact that the only road on the island is a circle -- meaning that if the Germans were to invade Todday, they could just turn around and go the other way. Waggett takes his job so seriously that he decides to guard the wrecked ship and later find the looted whisky, even though it isn't really his business.

* LiquidCourage: George can't face his mother and tell her that he's marrying Peggy whether she likes it or not -- that is, until he's had five shots of the whisky liberated from the cargo ship.
* MyBelovedSmother: George's overbearing, domineering mother who still treats him like a child even though he's now a grown man. She refuses to permit his marriage to Peggy, and at one point ''locks him in his room''.

* SeriousBusiness: The islanders are very, very upset that they can't get whisky anymore thanks to wartime rationing.

* SuddenDownerEnding: The closing narration talks about how the island had plenty of whisky, but that eventually they drank it all, following which "they all lived unhappily ever after". That is, except for Peggy and Sergeant Odd, who weren't whisky drinkers. This was no doubt due to the Hays Code, which was in force at the time and stipulated that no film where a crime is committed can end with the criminals profiting from it.

** The revenue man says that Waggett's barricade wouldn't be very useful against Germans. Waggett says "If we were Germans, there would be snipers!" Cue people in the rocks sniping at them. (They're shooting blanks.)
* TitleDrop: The closing narration says that the islanders had "whisky galore!"

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The story is inspired by the RealLife story of the SS ''Politician'', a merchant ship that ran aground offshore of the Hebrides in February 1941, carrying 22,000 cases of malt whisky and over £500,000 in ten-shilling banknotes (something this film omits). Not all of the cargo was recovered from the wreck.

* {{Narrator}}: A narrator sets the scene in Todday, and closes the story by explaining how the village eventually ran out of whisky and was unhappy.

The setting is Todday, a fictional island in the Scottish Outer Hebrides, during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (the film was shot on the Outer Hebrides island of Barra). Life is grim in Todday, because there is no whisky due to wartime rationing and shortages, and to the people of Todday, life is not worth living if there's no whisky to drink.

There's romance going on, at least. Catriona Macroon, daughter of the island's postmaster Joseph, has gotten engaged to meek schoolteacher George Campbell, although George's domineering mother refuses to sanction the marriage. Catriona's sister Peggy, the telephone operator (Joan Greenwood), has also gotten engaged to Sergeant Odd, who has just returned after fighting the Germans in North Africa — but they cannot marry as her father insists that he will only let his daughters marry if there is whisky at the wedding. The only person on the island who seems to be having a good time is Captain Waggett, commander of the local Home Guard, who takes his job of guarding a barren, windswept island far too seriously.

The tedium of wartime life on Todday is suddenly interrupted when a cargo ship, the SS ''Cabinet Minister'', runs aground offshore. It so happens that the ship was carrying fifty thousand cases of whisky. The islanders immediately mobilize to loot the whisky before the ship sinks, but they have to overcome the opposition of Captain Waggett, who takes it upon himself to prevent looting at all costs.

* AdaptationNameChange: The SS ''Politician'', the RealLife ship that was wrecked off a Scottish island with a cargo of whisky, was renamed the SS ''Cabinet Minister'' in the novel and subsequent film.

** Early in the film, Waggett shows what an officious fool he is by building a barricade on the island's only road (which goes around in a circle). Late in the film that barricade is used to delay Waggett and the revenue officers, while the islanders abscond with the whisky.
** Waggett is shown in his first appearance arguing with a ship captain, trying to get the captain to take away his recently-delivered .303 ammunition, which is the wrong calibre for his unit's rifles. Later, one of his boxes is used to hide some whisky, which gets Waggett in trouble when he sends the ammunition back to the mainland.

* LiquidCourage: George can't face his mother and tell her that he's marrying Peggy whether mom likes it or not — that is, until he's had five shots of the whisky liberated from the cargo ship.
* MyBelovedSmother: George's overbearing, domineering mother. She refuses to permit his marriage to Peggy, and at one point she ''locks him in his room''.

* TheRemake: Released in 2016 after more than a decade in DevelopmentHell. Largely follows the plot of the original movie, but adds a sub-plot concerning a government red box that was also on the ''Cabinet Minister'' and gets rid of the SuddenDownerEnding.

* SleepingSingle: Captain Waggett and his wife sleep in separate beds. In this instance it sort of fits Waggett's starchy, fussy personality.
* StockFootage: The clip used for the sinking of the ''Cabinet Minister'' is the same as that used for the sinking of the Jervis Bay in ''Film/SanDemetrioLondon''.

* SuddenDownerEnding: The closing narration talks about how the island had plenty of whisky, but that eventually they drank it all, and whisky got too rare and expensive for anyone to afford, and "they all lived unhappily ever after." That is, except for Peggy and Sergeant Odd, who weren't whisky drinkers. This was no doubt due to the Hays Code, which stipulated that no film where a crime is committed can end with the criminals profiting from it.